32 Yolks: From My Mother's Table to Working the Line

In an industry where celebrity chefs are known as much for their salty talk and quick tempers as their food, Eric Ripert stands out. The winner of four James Beard Awards, co-owner and chef of a world-renowned restaurant, and recipient of countless Michelin stars, Ripert embodies elegance and culinary perfection. But before the accolades, before he even knew how to make a proper hollandaise sauce, Eric Ripert was a lonely young boy in the south of France whose life was falling apart.

Yes, Chef: A Memoir

It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother’s house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations. Yes, Chef chronicles Marcus Samuelsson’s remarkable journey from Helga’s humble kitchen to the opening of the beloved Red Rooster in Harlem.

Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food

In his lively, unprecedented close-up portrait of Ferran Adrià, award-winning food writer Colman Andrews traces this groundbreaking chef’s rise from resort hotel dishwasher to culinary deity, and the evolution of El Bulli from a German-owned beach bar into the establishment voted annually by an international jury to be “the world’s best restaurant”.

Heat

From one of our most interesting literary figures, former editor of Granta, former fiction editor at The New Yorker, acclaimed author of Among the Thugs, a sharp, funny, exuberant, close-up account of his headlong plunge into the life of a professional cook.

The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection

In his second in-depth foray into the world of professional cooking, Michael Ruhlman journeys into the heart of the profession. Observing the rigorous Certified Master Chef exam at the Culinary Institute of America, the most influential cooking school in the country, Ruhlman enters the lives and kitchens of rising star Michael Symon and the renowned Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. This fascinating audiobook will satisfy any listener's hunger for knowledge about cooking and food, the secrets of successful chefs, at what point cooking becomes an art form, and more.

The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food

The Third Plate is chef Dan Barber’s extraordinary vision for a new future of American eating. After more than a decade spent investigating farming communities around the world in pursuit of singular flavor, Barber finally concluded that - for the sake of our food, our health, and the future of the land - America’s cuisine required a radical transformation.

Letters to a Young Chef

From the reinvention of French food through the fine dining revolution in America, Daniel Boulud has been witness to, and creator of, our contemporary food culture. A modern man with a classical foundation, he speaks with the authority that comes from a lifetime of experience, and no small amount of passion, about the vocation of creating and serving food.

Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line

In this urgent and unique book, chef Michael Gibney uses 24 hours to animate the intricate camaraderie and culinary choreography in an upscale New York restaurant kitchen. Here listeners will find all the details, in rapid-fire succession, of what it takes to deliver an exceptional plate of food - the journey to excellence by way of exhaustion. Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing listeners to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time.

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors.

The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America

Ruhlman propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnamable elements of great cooking.

Restaurant Man

How does a nice Italian boy from Queens turn his passion for food and wine into a nationwide empire? In his intrepid, irreverent, and terrifically entertaining memoir, Restaurant Man, Joe Bastianich charts his remarkable culinary journey from his parents’ neighborhood eatery to becoming one of the country’s most successful restaurateurs, along with his superstar chef partners: his mother, Lidia Bastianich, and Mario Batali.

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen

In this captivating memoir, the man whom Julia Child has called "the best chef in America" tells the story of his rise from a frightened apprentice in an exacting Old World kitchen to an Emmy Award-winning superstar who taught millions of Americans how to cook and shaped the nation's tastes in the bargain.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Last summer, The New Yorker published chef Anthony Bourdain's shocking, "Don't Eat Before Reading This." Now, the author uses the same "take-no-prisoners" attitude in his deliciously funny and shockingly delectable audiobook, sure to delight gourmands and philistines alike.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

In the 10 years since his classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores those changes, tracking Bourdain's strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood. Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen.

Generation Chef: Risking It All for a New American Dream

The heart of Generation Chef is the story of Jonah Miller, who at age 24 attempts to fulfill a lifelong dream by opening the Basque restaurant Huertas in New York City, still the high-stakes center of the restaurant business for an ambitious young chef. Miller, a rising star who has been named to the 30-Under-30 list of both Forbes and Zagat, quits his job as a sous chef, creates a business plan, lines up investors, leases a space, hires a staff, and gets ready to put his reputation and his future on the line.

Back of the House: The Secret Life of a Restaurant

Food writer and clinical psychologist Scott Haas wanted to know what went on inside the mind of a top chef - and what kind of emotional dynamics drove the fast-paced, intense interactions inside a great restaurant. To capture all the heat and hunger, he spent 18 months immersed in the kitchen of James Beard Award-winner Tony Maws's restaurant, Craigie on Main, in Boston. He became part of the family, experiencing the drama first-hand.

At the Chef's Table: Culinary Creativity in Elite Restaurants

Chefs at top restaurants face competing pressures to deliver complex and creative dishes, and navigate market forces to run a profitable business in an industry with exceptionally high costs and low profit margins. Creating a distinctive and original culinary style allows them to stand out in the market, but making the familiar food that many customers want ensures that they can stay in business.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements - fire, water, air, and earth - to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world....

Publisher's Summary

In 2007, chef Grant Achatz seemingly had it made. He had been named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine in 2002, received the James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award in 2003, and in 2005 he and Nick Kokonas opened the conceptually radical restaurant Alinea, which was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine. Then, positioned firmly in the world's culinary spotlight, Achatz was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma - tongue cancer.

The prognosis was grim, and doctors agreed that the only course of action was to remove the cancerous tissue, which included his entire tongue. Desperate to preserve his quality of life, Grant undertook an alternative treatment of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. But the choice came at a cost. Skin peeled from the inside of Grant's mouth and throat, he rapidly lost weight, and most alarmingly, he lost his sense of taste. Tapping into the discipline, passion, and focus of being a chef, Grant rarely missed a day of work. He trained his chefs to mimic his palate and learned how to cook with his other senses. As Kokonas was able to attest, the food was never better. Five months later, Grant was declared cancer-free, and just a few months following, he received the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef in America Award.

Life, on the Line tells the story of a culinary trailblazer's love affair with cooking, but it is also a book about survival, about nurturing creativity, and about profound friendship. Already much-anticipated by followers of progressive cuisine, Grant and Nick's gripping narrative is filled with stories from the world's most renowned kitchens - the French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, el Bulli - and sure to expand the audience that made Alinea the number-one selling restaurant cookbook in America last year.

What the Critics Say

"Achatz and Kokonas share an engaging, well-written, and informative description of what it's like to work in commercial kitchens along with the stirring story of Achatz's fight for his life." (Library Journal)

This narrator did a fantastic job of describing Grant and his trials and tribulations from working his way up at the French laundry to Alina and what he encountered along the way. As a chef I found the book inspiring enough to want to pick up his cookbook as well as Thomas Keller's. It's also a gentle reminder to us all, not to take anything for granted including our sense of taste.

Some of his creative ideas and food presentations descriptions have given me pause for thought. If you haven't looked up his YouTube video that videos you might do so just to wet your taste buds.

A great story about beating the odds, not accepting no for an answer and delving forth with courage when you think you're all tapped out.

I would take out most of the Nick Kokonas parts and delve more into Chef Achatz motivations and experiences. There is a lot of story there and I felt like the reader didnt get as much as they could have. Nick's story is pretty standard and other than being quite a self promoter, it was unremarkable and relatively uninteresting. The interesting parts of Mr. Kokonas' story could be covered in half a chapter or as a footnote.

Which scene was your favorite?

Chapters 7-9 are absolutely brilliant. You see Chef Achatz growing and have his "aha" moment. It gives some insight into Chef Keller's way of running a kitchen and you see what Grant learned from him.

Any additional comments?

Considering what Chef Achatz has been through I expected the book to be just his story, a true autobiography. I bought it without reading the reviews or jackat based purely on his reputation and skill. Truth be told the book is about 60% Chef Achatz autobiography and 40% Mr. Kokonas vanity project.

I knew the story of the innovative chef in Chicago who developed serious tongue cancer and found a doctor with a new procedure that spared the mutilating surgery typically done. I imagine that most folks were interested in how he dealt with the cancer and his work, and the new surgical technique but that spared his tongue and therefore his career, but this only occurred in the last 1/4 of the book.

I found the specific information about the food interesting - can't imagine how he came up with ideas like these EVERY day. I did not find the business negotiations very interesting - about opening new restaurants, dealing with landlords and agents, etc.

I don't think the commentary by Nick Kokonas was necessary or added anything to the book. In addition, the narrator voiced both parts exactly the same way. It was an odd and subtle way of speaking that was believable for Achatz, but not for Nick. I would forget to whom I was listening frequently because they both sounded the same.

Would you consider the audio edition of Life, on the Line to be better than the print version?

Many of the French preparation terms would have compelled me to stop reading so I could look up the pronunciation and definition so I preferred the audio edition.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Life, on the Line?

When he realized that he was given an amazing second chance and started spending more time on "life."

Have you listened to any of Johnny Heller’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was a first, but I'd like to hear more.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I was touched that he wanted to treat his dad to a dinner at TFL and when he and his mother sat crying on the sofa toward the end of his radiation therapy.

Any additional comments?

My husband is presently undergoing the same treatment for the same type of cancer to his tongue. This book gave us a lot of hope that all the things that seem so difficult right now will improve. I was overwhelmed by the chef's courage throughout the book, but wish there had been more follow-up on his present prognosis and what his follow-up treatment has been like.

Grant Achatz's story is incredible; it's a story you would expect to see as a film but it's true! His steadfast determination and focus is truly admirable and inspiring. Such a creative genius with genuine talent and vision are words that accurately describe him. And straight up, Nick Kokonas is a legit BOSS. He helped save a man's life with relentless pursuit that is only characteristic of a precious and rare friend.